The Latin Poems of Christian Wedsted: A Moravian in 18th-Century Pennsylvania

Christian Wedsted (1720–57) was a Moravian missionary, scribe and translator. Alongside his formal duties, he also composed a significant amount of Latin poetry. Here presented together for the first time alongside English translations are the 40 Latin poems that Wedsted composed during his time with the Moravians in Germany, England and Pennsylvania. A critical introduction and commentary provide historical, literary and religious context for Wedsted’s oeuvre, which contains birthday poems, impassioned religious verses and personal anecdotes about life in colonial Pennsylvania. At about 1200 lines, the poems make up one of the largest extant collections of original 18th-century Latin poetry from the Americas. Wedsted’s poems demonstrate how central Moravian piety was to his identity. Almost all his poems double as letters, and many are addressed to important Moravian personalities like Ludwig von Zinzendorf, August Spangenberg and Matthew Hehl. Wedsted’s poems weave together classical material and Christian material to create an original and unique project in colonial America. Many of the poems are experiments in genre that put ancient models and meters to work in new contexts. Wedsted’s Latin poetry thus offers readers the chance to witness first-hand a peculiar life lived during some dramatic moments in Moravian history.